From the Desk of Harold Poole

Number of Illegal Crossers Rising

Local Border Patrol told CHANNEL 5 NEWS the number of people crossing the border illegally is on the rise. Tens of thousands of people illegally crossed the border last summer. Traffic on foot declined once fall arrived.

Celia Martinez arrived in McAllen a couple of days ago. She left her home in Honduras last month.

“The entire trip is hard”, Martinez said. “It was tough traveling from Honduras all the way over here.”

Martinez brought her young son to the U.S. in search of a better life.

“The truth is the opportunity to come to the states just came up and we took advantage of the chance,” Martinez said.

Martinez is one of many illegal crossers who entered the U.S. this week.

Chris Cabrera is with the local Border Patrol union. He said the number of criminal illegal crossers is also increasing.

“More of our aliens are coming across, our criminal aliens, and even our drug smuggling seems to be increasing.”

A Honduran woman in Border Patrol custody was recently rescued from a stash house near Palmview. She said she came to the U.S. to escape the poverty in her country.

“I planned on coming well before my actual trip, because the situation in Honduras is very bad, the woman said. “I believe that the majority of immigrants want to leave Honduras because of the poverty.”

Cabrera said he’s looking forward to when lawmakers in Mexico and the U.S. can find a way to fix what he calls a “broken border”. He said there are facilities to deal with a rise in illegal crossers, but they may not have enough manpower.